Tara Brach - Refuge in Truth, Love and Awareness (2017-01-04)

Episode Date: January 7, 2017

Refuge in Truth, Love and Awareness (2017-01-04) - The three archetypal refuges of truth, love and awareness are interweaving pathways home found in most spiritual traditions. This talk looks at our habitual pursuit of substitutes to feel happy, and reflects on how we awaken through each true refuge. The talk ends with a living ritual anyone can participate in that helps us remember these refuges as we move through our lives. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara  

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome. I'd like to begin tonight's talk with a story of love for many years about a diamond thief and he used to hang around the diamond district to see who was purchasing gems and then he would pickpocket them afterwards. And one day a very well-known diamond merchant came, and he bought the most beautiful, the most well-known diamond that was around.

So this guy was really excited, the pick-pocket, and he follows him, and the guy boards a train, gets on a three-day journey, and during that time he keeps trying to pick-pocket the guy's, the merchant's pocket, and obtain the diamond. But by the end of the journey, he couldn't find the gem. And he was incredibly frustrated, and his professional pride was frustrated. because, you know, he was an accomplished thief. So he finally confronted the guy and he confessed. He said, you know, I've used all the skills of my art.

How'd you hide it from me? And the guy said, well, I saw you watching and suspected something. So I hid the diamond in the place that you'd be least likely to look, which was in your own pocket. The moral of the story being that the treasure we seek is closer than we can imagine. that we are so deeply conditioned to think that what we're wanting is out there, that it's in another person, or in an event that we're waiting to happen, something good down the corner, around the road.

And I think what we do is we forget that what we're really longing for is that experience of love, that experience of living fully that's only possible in the present moment in our own being. I think of really if you want to sum up the entire spiritual path, it's one of forgetting and remembering. That we, every day we get forgetful and we go grasping after things and avoiding things. Thoreau put it this way, he says that we're spending our life fishing only to realize it wasn't fish we were after.

So this is the deep forgetting we go into and every faith, every spiritual tradition has practices and creative rituals and ceremonies to help us remember what matters, to reconnect us. And in the Buddhist tradition the kind of key teaching and ceremony is around what's called the three refuges and we're going to be exploring them. really arctuple pathways because you can find them really these gateways back to what we love. You can find them in every tradition in some form. And they give us away these three refuges, these three ways of paying attention, of reconnecting with what we love, of kind of homecoming.

We move from this egoic contraction where we're living in this story of a limited self back to a sense of real belonging. So this is what we're going to reflect on together tonight, these three gateways or portals to really discovering that diamond in our pocket, what we cherish. And we'll do it, I'll speak some and guide you through some reflections, and then we're going to do a ceremony together,

a living ceremony that we do each year that I think you'll enjoy. So let me name the refuges. out to you. And the traditional order is, we're going to reverse the traditional order a little bit because I think it makes it easier for reflection. So the first of the refuges is called Dharma in Buddhism and it means the truth. It means the way like the Tao. So we take refuge in the deepest way in Dharma and when we're taking refuge in our moment-to-moment experience. That's the first refuge that we're going to explore. The second refuge in Buddhism is called Sangha, which has to do

with the community of our spiritual community and in the deepest way when we take refuge in sangha, we're taking refuge in our connectedness with all beings in loving presence. The third refuge in Buddhism is called Buddha and that is really refuge in awareness itself in that ever-present, luminous wakefulness that's right here. So these are the three refuges and they're summed up, the Polly word for faith is to rest your heart in what is true, which I think such a beautiful way to describe it. And with each of the refuges we're learning to entrust ourselves to a pathway home, whether it's through the present moment, through love or through resting in awareness,

itself. So it's very useful in reflecting on the refuges to first start with how we habitually take refuge in places and experiences that don't actually serve us because they give us the signal, oh, this isn't working, let's take true refuge and what really can change us. And so you can think of this as our conditioning to avoid what's here, like in the face of discomfort. When you're uncomfortable, when things are unpleasant, when things are scary, what do you do? When you experience pleasure, when you want something, how do you respond? And typically we forget that the diamonds in our pocket that it's right here in the present moment and we go into the some reactive patterning because we're wanting life different. So we try to control things.

I saw, this is some years ago, I saw a personal so I wanted to share with you tonight and the top title is Free to a Good Home and on one side of the ad you see a picture of a kitten. It says beautiful six-month-old male kitten, orange and Carmel Tabby, playful, friendly, very affectionate, ideal for family with kids. Or, the other side, you see a picture of a man. It says, handsome 32-year-old husband, personable, funny, good job, but says he doesn't like cats. Says he goes or the cat goes. Call Jennifer, come see both and decide which you'd like. So we live in what sometimes can be thought of as innocent misunderstanding about what will really bring us happiness. All of us. We have these ideas of what will make us happy. We think it's

when we get our way in some way. We think we'll be happy if we get something else checked off the list that's really been weighing heavily or when someone we love, when they change in a certain way and cooperate with us, you know, or we think we'll be happy when we get that promotion. or, so we latch on to substitutes, substitute refuges, and we don't often reflect and ask ourselves, is this really going to bring me happiness? We're in the habit of latching onto them. I can say for myself that one of the substitutes that I've watched through the decades for myself that this wanting to feel worth or worthwhile

and latching on to getting others' approval, being really busy, trying to be productive, get approval. I can remember even as a child being in some way aware that that would make me feel good about myself. And some years back, I had two insights, kind of close together, that really shined a light on this being what I call a false refuge. And by the way, when I use the language false refuge, it's not like bad.

It just doesn't work, okay? It doesn't work to seek approval to feel good about yourself. My first insight, I was with a client who did pretty much the same thing I did, which was just endlessly, you know, trying to, the self-improvement projects, one after another. And I asked a question, I said, because she felt like she was never, enough and I said well what would have to happen for you to be enough? When would you know you were enough? What would have to be the case? And in that moment she shook her head and she said I get it I'll never be enough according to my criteria.

No, I wasn't doing that to get her depressed. It was more to get it that she was on an endless hamster wheel. It would never be enough. And after I asked her that question, I said, okay, let me ask myself that question. And it was so helpful. I realized that it didn't matter what I accomplished. There would always be the sense of that would last for about 30 seconds, the well-being and okay, I pulled this one off, and then I'd be on to the next. I'd have to keep filling up the bucket, you know?

It was like it never sustained. My second insight was the moments that I remember very clearly, soon after asking me that and just getting myself, just getting, that none of my strategies for worth-wileness would ever make it last. I was at a retreat and I got quiet and entered a very deep sense of well-being and just sensed this kind of an inner radiance and an open-heartedness and it was the diamond in my pocket. It was like, oh, there's an inherent value to this awareness and heart that's right here. And then it became completely clear that my worth had nothing to do with anything I ever achieved.

In fact, the moments I was trying to achieve things or rating myself on that were absolutely, unstable and didn't work. That inflation didn't work and deflation, judging myself, didn't work. Worth was intrinsic and I had to get quiet. I had to kind of come home into the moment to have that radiant shine through. So we all do that in some way. We all have our substitutes. One man in a recent retreat in his 70s had a similar one to me. He was striped. to be enough and the retreat he had touched a lot of refuge and presence. And he said, I touched that sense of being enough, really deep peace. Then he said sadly, he said, why did I have to wait so long to realize I didn't need

to keep proving myself? That's taking refuge in presence. But the first step is this inquiry to start noticing how are we trying to feel better in our lives. How do we take refuge typically? And this is what the Buddha asked. He basically, and the inquiry of all spiritual seekers is what really brings us happiness. What really brings us satisfaction. And it's not what we habitually think it is. This brings us to looking at these refuges that are called true refuges because they've been discovered over the thousands and thousand of years by seekers in every different tradition that if we learn to take refuge right

here in the present moment, and if we learn to take refuge right in this very heart and in this awareness itself, we discover the real freedom and peace and happiness that's our birthright. So we're going to look at each one, do reflection with each one, and then do a ceremony. And the first one that we'll start with, as I mentioned, is refuge in truth, in Dharma. Now, with each of the refuges, there's an outer way that we take refuge in them and an inner. And the outer way when we take refuge in the Dharma and truth is by turning to the teachings and the practices and whatever supports us on the path. For instance, it might be going to a retreat,

or reading a certain book, you're taking refuge in truth when you immerse in studying the text, the classical texts or doing contemplative study, listening to the podcasts that wake you up. So these are the outer refuges and we take refuge in truth when we align our lives so we have some space to get quiet, to pay attention. Thomas Merton said that, the rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form of contemporary violence. He said to allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. And that's powerful language.

and yet it's kind of one of those wake-ups we need because busyness ends up covering over our heart. We get so speedy we can't feel our life right here. So the outer refuge and truth is to align our life, to do the practices and the study and the trainings that help us come home right into the present moment. and the inner refuge is totally opening to and attending to what's right here and now. It's really learning to stay.

That is in a way an easy kind of summary of our practices that rather than leaving the moment trying to seek something better or trying to push away what's here, over and over again it's, ah, come back. There's a necklace with a dog bone and on it it says sit, stay, heal. I thought that was pretty good. Sometimes learning to stay is challenging because as Joko Beck says we have to return to that

which we have spent a lifetime hiding from. She says to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment even if it's a feeling of failing, of abandonment, of unfairness, that's really the challenge. And yet, when we start learning to stay, what happens is we come into presence with pleasantness or unpleasantness, we come into presence with what's here, and the more we stay, the more that presence comes alive and what we've discovered is the light and warmth of presence itself. We learn to stay. So this is where we discover the diamond

and this is what then ends up bringing our life alive. I can say for myself that taking refuge in the Dharma and truth is particularly powerful and helpful when we know we're entering stressful situations and just in the last few weeks, and I think probably a lot of people know this one, having family and holidays, the whole combo,

I find every time I go through it afterwards, I look back and I ask myself, well, how much did I really show up? How much was I really there connecting with humans? And I used to think this a lot with my parents like, oh, they're not going to be around this long. Was I really there? Or was I in some sort of a contracted reactive place? And often I'd feel a sense, a little bit of a sense of regret that I wasn't more present.

So more and more, and I was very aware of it this time, I was juggling a lot of things. I'm trying to put together a book proposal and talks for a retreat and so on and everybody landed on the gathering spot in my house. And so I said, okay, refuge in the Dharma, in the moment. And every time I'd feel pulled, like I want to be with you, but I also want to go back to my office and do such and such, I would breathe and just mentally say, okay, stressed, stay, stay. And in that staying, there'd be some space and then I'd reconnect. There would be interest or appreciation or humor would come up

or in some way a shared moment. And I'm so grateful for those shared moments and it really comes from refuge in presence, resting at the heart and what's right here. So let's pause and just for a moment together, just dip in, refuge in the Dharma in the present moment. In a way, refuge in the Dharma and in the moment begins with this conscious,

intention to arrive, to be right here, to let go of the movie in the mind that is pretty insistent and incessant. And that means we just have to let go and then let go again and again. But to notice what it's like to come out of thinking and into your senses. You might notice what's going on right now, perhaps the sense of sound. listening and then the sense of sensation, the feelings in your body, the felt sense in the region of the heart, resting the heart in what is here, resting the mind in what is here. This moment to moment presence is the gateway to that diamond, that that radiance, that preciousness. And typically the mind gets pulled away so we re-chews.

presence. We choose to take refuge in the truth of the moment, feeling the breath and the body breathing, resting the mind and what's right here, this aliveness. Dana falls in her poem trusting prana says, trust the energy that courses through you. Trust and take surrender even deeper. Be the energy. Sense that being the energy. Don't push anything away, Follow each sensation back to its source in vastness and pure presence. Emerge so new, so fresh, you don't know who you are. Welcome in the season of monsoons. Be the bridge across the flooded river and the surging torrent underneath.

Be unafraid of consummate wonder. Be the energy. And blaze a trail across the clear night sky like lightning. dare to be your own illumination. Opening your eyes. That's a taste of refuge in the Dharma, in the truth of the moment. Then refuge in Sanga or in love. The outer refuge in love or Sanga is turning towards those relationships that help us experience

connectedness and open-heartedness. in widening circles. Traditionally, it was the community of those that followed the Buddha and it widens out really to be the community of beings. And so we find different ways to wake up in those communities with the understanding of we can't wake up without each other. It's in realizing our belonging that we become free. So there's many ways.

and the outer refuge is through, in our community, spiritual friends groups where small groups meet every other week to meditate together and to share about what life, what's life, what's going on? You know, how do we bring these practices alive in our lives? Much like a 12-step group. So it's critical that we have a sense of belonging to something larger than ourselves. We know it when we're afraid. We need refuge in Sanga when in some way we're stirred up as humans, we're pack animals and contact sues us. The story about a family with a young son and during a powerful storm he cries out many times he's scared of lightning and thunder.

And each time his father gets up, goes into his room, calms him and then leaves his room saying, don't be scared. God is with you. So this happens the number of time until finally the boy says, I know God is with me, but right now I need someone with skin on. We need that. So it's really about recognizing our belonging to something larger. The biggest illusion, the pain we live in, is that we're separate, we're small, we're limited, we're apart from others.

I heard a story a couple of years ago, one woman shared about her brother and her father, and her father had been really unable to communicate love to his children and even though later she found out he loved them all very much. So her brother was dying of brain cancer and his wife told her that the only thing missing for Jay, for her brother in his life was that his father never told him that he loved him. That was the only thing missing.

and so this woman encouraged her father to, on the next visit, you know, to go ahead and let him know that he, you know, his son that he loved him. He agreed, he went, visited him and came back and said, well, the subject just didn't come up, you know. He had been blocked for a really long time. He was scared, okay? So then she got a call, it was one of those final calls, and it seemed her brother would probably die in about an hour. He's blind, he's paralyzed. he hadn't spoken for a week. So she called her father and she said,

Daddy, you have one chance. Jay will probably die today. Please pick up the phone and tell him that you love him. So this is what she wrote. She says, and Daddy did just that. He called Jay and told him that he loved him. And Jay, who hadn't spoken for a week, started talking and talked to Daddy for a half an hour.

And Jay didn't even die that day. He rallied and lived for another month. It's all about love. In this human realm, we long to love and be loved. It's the most awake expression of our being. So, this refuge has many, many different pathways. One pathway is by exploring the path together with others. Another is serving.

when we serve, we serve not from a, oh, you're needy, I'm going to help you, but from we belong together. It's one of my friends as scribes having been at a conference soon after the November elections and several of the Muslim women there were afraid to walk out of the streets because this particular city it had so much violence and so much, so threatening to be Muslim there. and a group from the converts came and kept them company as they were moving around town were allies in those moments and she said it wasn't like we were being good Samaritans doing a favor to them it was for us the shared us and that's what it means to serve we serve for our shared sense of belonging it's hard a story of one friend tells us

of this engineer who went to a monastery to really heal his suffering. But he was unable to make progress because he had this analytic mind and every time he couldn't quiet himself down, he was always trying to figure things out. And he just kept getting caught in his mind. So the abbess, the head of the monastery, sent him to volunteer at a maternity ward holding babies that were prematurely born. and he did this. This was his practice for 10 hours a week for two years. He just would hold these preemies.

And it described holding these fragile beings carefully attending to their breathing. And as he did so, this bit of softness or warmth started filling the center of his being and his body and it just started growing. And he said after some months that warmth filled his whole body, And eventually when he finished his time, he returned to the monastery and he was a transformed person. And his new way of meditating was to seat his attention in that tender place of warmth in his body. Do you understand it was just moving from the head to the heart, to the wake wise heart? So the outer refuge, serving, being together, waking up together, the inner

inner refuge is any way of paying attention inwardly that wakes up and softens and opens our heart. So let's take a pause here and we're going to explore that inner refuge of love of Sangha. As you pause, just bring the attention really into your body. Feel your breath and feel your breath at your heart. You might bring to mind some body or some being that's very, easy to love, what we might call an uncomplicated kind of loving. Let this person or could be a pet be close in so you can see their eyes and see the light that comes through their eyes, what it's like when they're expressing love or affection, what it's like when they're happy,

the goodness that comes through this being. You might mentally feel and in your body, and in your body feel, feel yourself appreciating. And then mentally whisper the being's name and just say thank you and someone else that you love. Again, bring that being close in. So you can see what the eyes look like when they express care and affection, what it's like when this being is happy. to the aliveness and creativity, humor, the goodness of this being. And let the feeling of appreciation be visceral, felt sense in your body, and in your mind to whisper the name and say thank you. Notice what happens when there's that sincerity and appreciation, letting yourself rest in that field of loving and tenderness.

This is the warmth and radiance of what's described as the empty, open, diamond heart. Rest in this heart space. Mary Oliver writes, so every day, so every day I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God, one of which was you. We take refuge in Sanga, in love. We start experiencing all beings. as sacred. We sense the secret beauty in all beings. So we've explored refuge in Dharma, which is truth, refuge in Sangha, which is love, and the

final refuge Buddha, which is awareness. We take refuge in the Buddha in an outer way by taking refuge in some embodiment of awareness, some being where you can sense awareness is really bright and present. And it could be in the historical Buddha or Christ or the Bodhisattva of compassion, divine mother, some wise and loving teacher. It may be that you have a reflection where you have a sense of your own high self, your being when you're really awake, I sometimes call the future self,

where you've really embodied an awakened heart. So we bring to mind some figure where there's that, awakened heart mind and by reflecting on that this is the outer refuge it helps us to sense in a very direct way how that's living within us

the inner refuge in Buddha nature is directly in awareness now the challenge this refuge the challenge is most of the time we're living in a story about ourselves and that story

separates us from the direct experience of awareness. And most of the time that story is not just of a self, it's of a limited self that's on its way somewhere else, worrying, planning, fearing, often judging. Some of you might remember one of my favorite little prayers is, dear God, so far, today, I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, I haven't been greedy, selfish, grumpy, nasty, or overindulgent. Very thankful for that. But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed. And from then on, I'm going to need a lot of help.

So if we're living in that story of a separate and somewhat limited self, we're really removed from perceiving and resting in the awareness that's here. Wee Wu-Wai says that 98% of what we're... we do as far ourselves and there isn't one. So refuge in Buddha nature, refuge in this awakened mind and heart, any way that we can let go of the stories and open up to what's here. Now one way that I like to help get a glimpse is with a very simple exercise and you can try to just take ten seconds, okay? You ready? It's funny how when we think we're going to do an exercise, all of a sudden we sit up straighter.

Okay, here it is. You can close your eyes if you'd like, that might help. For the next 10 or 15 seconds, try not to be aware. Try not to be aware. Keep trying not to be aware. Try not to be aware. Okay, that's enough. Coming back.

So how many were successful? Can I say by hands? Don't be shy. There's always a few. I often share that the first time I did this, my mom was in the room and she was the only person that raised her hand. But I think she was trying to catch me. What we find is that awareness is just always there. We're paying attention to the objects, we're paying attention to our thoughts or to the images that we're seeing or to the sounds. So we're not noticing that which is perceiving.

It's like watching a movie but not being aware of the projector or even the mind of the one who created the movie because we're fixated on the screen. So what we're really learning with refuge in awareness is to turn back and start noticing that cognizance, that wakefulness, the light of awareness that's always here. might imagine, you know, did you just start recognizing that which is looking through your eyes right now, that which is listening, that when you're thinking it's that which is aware of the thoughts and that we begin to sense that more and more, it's like the background and we're not fixated only on the foreground, all of a sudden there's this wholeness of being

that opens up that really is true refuge. So I think that's a enough words, we'll practice this last refuge and then we're going to be doing our ceremony. So take a moment again to close your eyes and pause and sense yourself right here. What lets you know that you're right here? You might call on a figure first. This is the outer approach that expresses the enlightened heart mind. Might be an image of the Buddha, the bodhisattva of compassion. or being that you sense is very awake.

Awakened heart, awakened mind. Imagine image of your own being in the future when you're feeling that you're more embodying love and embodying wisdom. So let that figure, that image be right here of an enlightened being. And just allow that radiant openness to surround you. Imagine the mind of this awakened being, the vastness and lucidity. Imagine the heart of this being, that tenderness. And let that fill you with warmth and sensitivity.

Direct attention inward and see how that tender, radiant, all-inclusive awareness is living inside you. Feel your body, heart and mind, light up as if the sunlit sky is using every cell of your body and shining through the spaces between the cells, listening to the whole moment, feeling the whole moment, sensing this awareness is experiencing the changing flow, moment to moment of life. What is this awareness like? This is this awareness like? This is this background of stillness and awakeness, of silence, just letting go into the awareness, the open wakefulness, the mystery that's here. Rest your heart in it.

Sri Ramakrishna says, O longing mind, dwell within the depth of your own pure nature. Do not seek your home elsewhere. Your naked awareness alone, O mind, is the inexhaustible abundance for which you long. We're on a path of forgetting and remembering. And these pathways to sacred presence help us to remember more and more so our life becomes real life. Refuge in truth this very moment, in love and in the awareness. the vastness and wakefulness.

That's our home. So we're going to do our final part of our meditation as what I've been describing this ceremony. And you're going to need your threads. You might pick up your thread and take it and hold it in your hands, one end and one end. And you're going to be needing a partner to help you.

So if you will, I think this is a good time for us to stand up. If you stand up, when you stand up, if you could look right near you and find one person that you're agreeing to be partners with. And if you're looking around and nobody's quite near you, just raise your hands so you can find each other so you can partner up. And if there's nobody around, it's fine to do it on your own, but it's a little bit easier this way. Let me give you a little bit of background on what this thread is all about and then

we're going to be doing the ceremony with it. This is meant to be understood as the thread from the hem of a monk's robe. And it's a protection cord, basically. What you're doing is you're going to be wearing a protection cord. And when one student asked a Tibetan teacher Trobeian Trunpa, well, what is it protecting us from? He said, well, you, of course, yourself. And it's really protecting us from unawareness. It's protecting us from forgetting. So you can also think of this as a remembrance court if you'd like. I like that in a way.

The understanding is that if you're not a monk or nun and you're just in the marketplace, you're like a monk or none in drag. You know, you're just, you have this around, you're going to be wearing it and it can be a reminder. So what we're going to be doing is reflecting on each of the refuges and tying a knot in the cord, and I'll tell you when. And then once the cord is alive with the refuges, you're going to be tying it either on your wrist,

and you might choose whether you want to wrap it around your wrist or around your neck, in which case you bring it behind your neck and have the two ends in front of you. Okay? So you might decide which way you want to do it. But for now, let's do our reflection. and then we'll help each other get the cords on. Closing your eyes, holding your string, and we're going to be doing the order this time

in the classical sequence and then we're going to be chanting it. So we begin as we ended in the reflections in the talk with refuge in the Buddha. And just a sense for yourself what this means. when you say, I take refuge in the Buddha, you're really taking refuge in Buddha nature in your own awakened heart mind. So this is a kind of dedication to turning again and again towards your full potential for wisdom, for love, for freedom, turning towards the awareness that's here always

that's your true home. So as you feel in yourself this longing to turn towards awakened awareness, please tie the first knot into your cord. The second refuge, refuge in the Dharma, it's taking refuge in truth. So you might reflect on what this means for you, taking refuge in the outer truths, how you might more fully give yourself to practice, to contemplative study, to aligning

your life in a way that most allows for awakening, the inner refuge of truth, is this dedication to rest our hearts in the truth of the present moment. As you feel your longing and your commitment to that, to rest in our hearts in the truth of the present moment, to resting your heart in the present moment, please tie the second knot into your cord. Third refuge, refuge in the Sangha or really in loving awareness. It's reflecting and sensing what that means to you, how you can deepen your sense of belonging through conscious relationship, how you can deepen your sense of belonging and love in your own reflections, the loving kindness, practice, compassion.

To feel in yourself that dedication and longing to awaken the heart in this refuge of loving presence, refuge in Sanga, and when you feel that to please tie the third knot into the core. And when that's complete, either to, as I mentioned, either to wrap the cord a bit around your, your wrist or your neck and we have here, Andy's going to help me in demonstrating how it's done, I wrap mine around the wrist and your partner will take the two ends and just it's a beautiful thing to receive the help of your partners. They just tie it on so it's knotted and stays on your wrist or around your neck. If you got the idea, then take turns with your partner and let's do this on silence and offer a real caring presence as you do.

When you're done please take your sheet, your chant sheet and we'll take a moment of silence. I invite you to, when you're complete you can sit down and we'll do the chant sitting down. Namotasa, Bagoato, Arahato, Arahato, Sama, Sama, Sama, Sama. buddhasa namotasa Bhagavato Arrhatu Samasam

Sub budasa Namotasa Bhagawata Bhagawattou Arahatau Samasambudasah Buddha's Sarenam Gautchami Dham Sarenam Gautiami

Sangam Sarenam Gautiam Dutiyam P Buddha'seranam Gautiami Dutiyam pi Dhani Mawraming Sarenam Gautiami Dutianpi

Sangam Seraanam Gauti Tatiampi Buddha Sernam Gautiami Tatiampi

Ptianam Tamaanam Sernam Tadiyam Psi-a-a-hungam, satanam, gauchami. May all beings everywhere, find refuge in awareness, refuge in truth, refuge in love, refuge in the diamond, radiant nature of their own awakened heart. Namaste and blessings. So, just a couple of words for you.

First of all, I want to thank you all for jumping in and participating, many of you totally fresh to this, and know that each of us can use it in our own way. It's really a way of remembering what really matters to you. So enjoy, and happy New Year. Blessings. Thank you. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.